When, in the last years of the 19th century, health in the country was defined as a question of “good or bad luck”, nurses were already involved in technical aspects based on practices taught by other professionals, under the authority of hospital administrations.

Since then, in the process of the professionalization of nursing, we value the following as key milestones: the evolution of the training system, the regulation of professional practice and the creation of the Order of Nurses.

At the beginning of the 20th century, health was defined as “the absence of disease”. The apparent mutual exclusion of these two concepts led to their own designs, where the purpose of nursing came to the fore.

Throughout the history of the 20th century, health has been defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being”, a definition that has been widely criticized, while questioning the difference and uniqueness of each person and assuming that illness is part of a health phenomenon, in a lived temporality and in unique circumstances.

Health in Portugal became a right after April 25, 1974. With the constitutional revision, “health is now considered a good to be achieved and preserved”. The paradigm shift first announced in September 1978, at the International Conference on Primary Health Care, held by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, expresses the “need for urgent action by all governments, all those working in the fields of health and development of the world community to promote the health of all the peoples of the world”. This commitment to health promotion and disease prevention has since been taken up by nursing education and nurses' clinical practice. In the 1980s “good health was seen as one of the greatest resources for social, economic and personal development and an important dimension of quality of life”.

Between the 1980s and 1990s, training models evolved towards more reflective pedagogical practices; there was a transition from technical rationality to an orientation towards care, with recourse to the Academy. Despite everything, there still seems to be some dissonance between a philosophy already announced by Alma Ata and the models in use in some clinical contexts, and the ideal of that philosophy has yet to be fulfilled.

The affirmation of the Order of Nurses, as the entity that regulates the practice of Portuguese nursing, with the production of a series of instruments such as the Quality Standards, the competencies of General Care Nurses, the Common and Specific Competencies of Specialist Nurses, among others, reveals that health care and, consequently, nursing care, today assume a technical and scientific requirement, fundamental for society.

René Dubos' definition of Health - “...a modus vivendi that allows imperfect men to have a compensatory and not too difficult life, despite living in an imperfect world” - reveals the potential of nurses' intervention in “responding” to the unique human “responses” that each human being carries in their life processes, in their own temporalities and circumstances.

I'll end by highlighting the guidelines for the motto chosen by the International Council of Nurses (ICN) for International Nurses Day 2024:

“Our nurses. Our future. The economic power of care”.

I would dare to add:

“Our nurses” are a transformative value for global health in empowering people to manage health-disease processes!

“Our future” lies in the best scientific evidence and in the announced paradigm shift that has yet to be fulfilled!

“The economic power of care” is based on health promotion and disease prevention in integrated health contexts!

The School of Nursing (Lisbon) of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa respectfully greets all nurses!

Amélia Simões Figueiredo